A Hope
by dragonfly and malilee
Summary: There was nothing in her mind, her heart void of all emotion. And the only person who had ever truly listened was now far, far away, some place she didn't know, and couldn't find...
1. A Monotony of Living

**Hey guys, **

**This idea just came to me, from some writings of my own, and I wanted out it up, **

**see what you guys thought. Also, Inkheart is an awesome book! Thanks.**

**(p.s first chapter will be quite short, but they'll get longer)**

**Chapter 1**

Meggie stared blankly out the window and into the distance, a blank sheet of paper in

front of her, and a pencil held loosely in her grasp. She didn't have the energy or indeed

the want to do anything, or go anywhere, anymore; she spent her days sitting like she was

now. Hoping. For something to come – for something, anything.

But, like every day, eventually she began to scratch her pencil on paper, trying to make

someone understand how she felt… But no-one would listen really. And the only person

who ever had was far, far away, in some place she didn't know. So she wrote, her only

escape.

________________________________________________________________________

_There was nothing in her heart, her mind blank, void of all emotion, the usual concoction_

_of thoughts and ideas, hopes and excitement, emotions and insights, replaced by nothing_

_but the endless monotony of a life not worth living. _

_She sighed, not bothering to hide her depression any longer. Her excuse, "I'm tired" did _

_little to reassure and silence the array of concerned voices that peppered her with_

_questions, any longer. Frowns just stared at her._

_Yes, depression. She had finally put a tentative name to what she herself could not fully_

_understand. Though the word did not fit with what was happening inside of her, what else_

_was she to call an emotion that did not exist, at least for her?_

_For it was not depression – not the interminable sadness that crumpled your entire being,_

_reducing you to a shaking, helpless wraith, a mere shadow of your former self – but an _

_absence. Of what, she couldn't say. Hope? Love? Care? Compassion? Any emotion at all_

_really, but it was not within her heart. _

_What scared her even more, was that she did not care about even this – and perhaps this_

_was the worst thing of all, because it sent her through tangled branches of mind games,_

_tearing and scratching at the weakening pillars of sanity that threatened to collapse._

_And then there was the hope – flickers of light, pealing like bells, flashing like lightening,_

_but always, tantalizingly, just out of grasp, though grasp she did and wildly so, before_

_inevitably, they were gone, swept away by the wave of despair, loss and urgent need for_

_the light. But, as always, it was consumed with a fiery vengeance, as if her mind was _

_purposely doing this – perhaps in someway to protect her? But in the end, there was no_

_way to tell, and she did not care to find out._

_Most of all, she loathed – a vague emotion, somewhere locked away – being alone, the _

_terrible emptiness muffling any hope of her surfacing back into… Something normal. _

_Somewhere where she could laugh and cry, and love and hate. Somewhere where people_

_wouldn't gasp, eyes wide and obtrusive, at the purplish-black bruises slanting beneath _

_her deadened gaze, but to once again meet a determined and sweet blue gaze, eyes _

_twinkling with delight at the beauty of life itself. _

_But no longer._

_Just ceasing to exist, her heart was extinguished, like the dark clouds of night drawing a _

_veil across a bright lit moon – but it couldn't claw its' way back to life, not now that dank_

_moss was clouding all hopes of a new spark._

_Truly, her whole being felt like a path of the moon, her life slowly disappearing, fragment _

_by fragment, night by night, until, inevitably, she was swallowed up whole by the _

_shadows. _

_But this time, the night sky was not obeying the rules…_

**Ok guys, here it is – chapter 1, please tell me what you think! Reviews!! :)**

**~ kris ~**


	2. Mo

**Chapter 2**

**Ok, here's chapter 2. Thank you to **bubbly4roxy** who pointed out I hadn't actually **

**said what was going on… yeah, sometimes I get a little caught up and it makes sense **

**in my mind, so I assume everyone else is on the same page… so, thanks! **

Mo glanced up at his daughter – it was right for a 15 year old girl to be so… He couldn't

even explain it. Quiet perhaps? She never talked any more, that's for sure. Even there at

Eleanor's incredible library, fountains of books at her mercy, Meggie still withdrew

into herself – not reading, not moving. There hadn't been a certain point, or happening,

Mo decided, that had triggered her sadness. Or at least, not one that he knew. It was just a

gradual declination that, though Mo had noticed – unless it had been returning from the

Inkworld? But no, no-one could feel that attached to such a brutal world made from just

ink and paper – he had not confronted his daughter about. He brushed it off as teenage

hormones – perhaps missing that young fire boy he had read out of the book, so long ago.

But it had gotten worse, until even Eleanor and Darius noticed, and stared questioningly

at her, tentatively asking if she was ok. And for some reason, Mo felt strangely distanced

from his daughter, ever since they had returned from the Inkworld. He had insisted they

leave, and that no, she could not go gallivanting off with that boy to rescue Dustfinger

from the White Women.

Mo snorted. As if he would even consider such a possibility! After all that had

happened… How could he let he go again? Could she not see how that would affect Resa

and himself? But this silence was just as bad, if not worse – at least she would have been

happy in another world.

But here, she cast her deadened gaze upon everyone and everything, so that even the

books did not hold their usual charm and wonders. It was as if his daughter had brought a

dark cloud over them all, and did not care to blow it away.

And though everyone knew it, nobody would dare to say that, inevitably, this _thing _was

going to climax. With what and how, nobody dared to ask or even think.

________________________________________________________________________

_The iceberg swam spun slowly, like a corkscrew in treacle, pin wheeling like a lopsided_

_dandelion seed, straying far from the cheery yellow blossoms of home. It was sinking _

_slowly, but so gradually that no-one deigned to notice and indeed, if anyone had, what_

_was there to do, and why? It was the natural order of life for everything to rise and fall. _

_Who would care, and who would it affect if the iceberg disappeared completely into the _

_murky depths, back to where it was borne? Little did they know, underneath the bright, _

_fresh whites of the crystallized ice – frozen in time, all the memories, all the pain, _

_immobilized within – that the reality of the iceberg was suspended in a silent world, _

_drowning beneath with no-one to hear, no-one to help. No-one to save it. _

_No-one to save her._

**Short I know, but I needed to get the point across. Reviews please!! Thanks.**

**~ kris ~**


	3. Death Shall Not Come

**Chapter 3**

Resa and Eleanor watched from afar, silent as always, as Meggie wrote, her pencil

skimming across the pages. This was routine now – each day they would crouch down by

a nearby bookshelf and just wait. Some days, Meggie's words would flow out for pages

and pages, sometimes so powerful that she would whisper them as she wrote… But on

others, she would scratch out a few short sentences before slipping the paper away. Oh,

and how Resa longed to read them… Longed to know what she wrote and what was

wrong, so that she could at least try to comfort her daughter… She had to admit that she

had been so entirely wrapped up in herself, and Mo, and getting back from the Inkworld

that Meggie had gone on… unnoticed. Everyone assumed – but no, not even that; nobody

even thought of her at all – that she was fine as usual, not bothering to see how she was

coping. Resa sighed, regretful. And now it was too late.

"Resa!!" Eleanor's voice hissed anxiously from her side. Resa flipped her gaze towards

the sound, before darting them to Meggie, and then her watch. 4:00pm. Her eyes widened

as she drew them up to meet Eleanor's. 4:00pm. The time when Meggie awoke, in her

own way. Together, Resa and Eleanor crept through the towering book shelves, running

as silently as they could to escape. At the great wooden doors to the library, Resa paused

for a moment, looking back a little fearfully at her daughter, before hurrying through. Just

as Eleanor scampered after her, Meggie's clear and musical voice began to slip through

the cracks in the library, filling up every darkened shadow.

"A shot, harsh and crude, rang through the air and reverberated through the girls empty

heart. The pain began to spread, and her small mouth trembled into a smile as blood

trickled through her parted lips…"

A sob hiccupped through Resa before she could withhold it, and Eleanor's arm crept

tentatively round her shoulder. Meggie had been at this for weeks now, trying to read

herself dead. There were no other means for her to end her life – Mo had made sure of

that – but still she tried, and they could not stop her. What Meggie did not realize, or

perhaps did not care, was that her pain was as harsh upon her parents as it was upon

her…

________________________________________________________________________

_If a sound rings out in a forest, and nobody hears, is it still a sound? Or was it ever, _

_truly? And will it ever be again?_

_Or was it, perhaps, that no-one was listening…_

________________________________________________________________________

_Cool wind stirs silently_

_Tender leaves shiver_

_Rustle and quiver_

_The darkness of night deepens with grey_

_White stars unstitched_

_Shadows bewitched_

_The black depths tremble_

_Wind sighs deeply_

_Light succumbs meekly_

_Nettled limbs grope blindly_

_Chills in their wake_

_Silent, opaque _

_Foreboding sense of night, whispers_

_Moon stains with red_

_Suns been misled_

_They were watching. Spirits, shadows, souls. From behind shadows. They were there. _

_Whispers, and the slithering sounds of soft movements. Murmuring. Watching._


	4. Elsewhere

Suddenly, it was as if she had come to life – she sat up a little straighter, her eyes were a

little brighter and her hand was poised to write. Because Meggie had a plan. Something

to end this oblivion of nothing. As her pencil scratched at the paper, she felt herself

finding a little hope, a little something to wish for and dream about. A goal.

True, Mo would not let her die here.

But there was no stopping her from dying somewhere else.

________________________________________________________________________

_By the deathly still of night, a field of roses lay, each bud loosely closed, with wilting _

_petals – their heads bowed in sorrow. 'Twas as if each flower had been plucked from_

_the earth and left suspended there, to slowly die. _

_But one rose defied to conform to inevitability. Petal by petal, it was renewed in life, as_

_if the pale lit moon was drawing it close, enrapturing it with filmy strands of silken spider_

_web. The rose gazed up at the white orb, like a bee to sweet flowers or a buttercup to the_

_sun. And this small change affected everything. A small pinprick of light._

_These were dangerous, uncharted waters. _

_Hope._

**Sorry it's short! New chapter soon, please enjoy!**

**~ kris ~**


	5. Temptation, Frustration

**Chapter 5**

Shakily, her pen scratched over the paper, as her mind explored the innumerous

possibilities this opened for her. By her side, was a book, a fairytale – an old favourite

picture book, somewhere she'd always wanted to go. Next to it, lay a sloppy pile of more

books, each suitable in their own way – The Sign at the Sugared Plum, where she could

blend into the background, just another nameless corpse; The Tea Rose, where another

murder victim was sure to only add intrigue… But how to choose? Which world should

she go to? She had pondered over each selection for hours before finally coming to a

decision – she would read herself back into the Inkworld of Inkspell, back we she knew

she belonged. Perhaps she would find peace there, a closure of some sort. It was a

fanciful idea, and though disobeying her father did not come naturally to her, she was

past caring. Why had she not thought of it before? She should have done it the minute she

returned home… But a heart so full of despair, and a mind so weakened are not the best

of friends in times of need.

________________________________________________________________________

Meggie snarled in frustration, crumpling the sheets of crusty parchments within her

ink stained fingers. Nothing was right! She couldn't bend the words to her will, not like

Fenoglio could, or even Orpheus. Her writings were bitter on her tongue, jumbled and

awkward. They wouldn't flow for her… Not this time.

________________________________________________________________________

_A climax calls, come hear _

_our plight_

_remains a tempting _

_flicker of night_

_Of stinging winds and bitter sands_

_a cold and crumbled pair of hands_

_The last sharp fronds of light_

**Ok sorry again. I said I'd update.. but anyway yeah sorry. If you need any help **

**figuring out what the writings mean (the italics bits at the bottom) just review or **

**pm or something and I'll help you out. Thanks.**

**(and sorry)**

**~ kris ~**


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